The Bookman

by Lavie Tidhar

  "Where is he?" Orphan said. The words constricted in his throat.

  "Where is who?" Jack said, but there was a sudden look of horror on his face, brief yet powerful, and Orphan knew, with a helpless, sinking feeling, that he was right.

  "Where is the Bookman?"

  "Put down the gun, Orphan."

  "Where is he?" Orphan said. The gun did not move. It pointed at Jack's chest. It made Orphan sick, to be threatening his friend. Yet he didn't remove it.

  "Please," Jack said. There was something small and helpless in the simple word. He took a step forward, raised his arm as if to gesture, and his mouth opened, his lips parted in the beginning of speech…

  And froze instead.

  He made an ungainly statue. He was fixed in a position of frozen movement, the raised arm suspended in mid-air, the open lips just about to blow out air and with it their first word… His foot had not quite touched the ground, remained hovering just above the floor.

  Orphan, uncertain, said, "Jack?"

  There was no answer.

  He put the gun away in his belt. It was not as if he would have ever used it. He approached his friend cautiously. Confusion made him hesitate. He touched Jack's arm. His flesh was hard. He put his hand before his friend's mouth, but could feel nothing, no breath blowing against his fingers.

  "What the…?"

  He stepped back. The room suddenly felt very small and crowded. The books stared at him from their shelves with sly expressions.

  He stepped forward. Concern made him go back to his friend. He stood close to him, reached to check his pulse…

  With a smooth, flowing motion Jack sprang into life. One moment he was still. The next, he was returned to life, and his foot came down with force on Orphan's, sending a hot flame of pain into Orphan's mind, bringing with it, sickeningly loud, the sound of delicate bones breaking.

  Jack's arm came down, hard. His fingers bunched into a fist. The fist connected with Orphan's nose, and more pain flowered, and he was thrown back.

  His back connected with a bookcase. His hat had fallen off. More pain, and then it was raining: volume after volume of antique books fell on him in ones and twos, a dribble that built into a flood. He lashed out, blinded, connected with nothing but air. The books continued to fall, hitting him on his head, his shoulders, his arms.

  He blinked sweat from his eyes and tried to scramble away. From nowhere came Jack's foot, a kick that connected with a furious impact with his ribs, and he screamed.

  "What are you doing?" he cried, but realisation, working its slow, inefficient way through his sluggish brain, had finally arrived, and for a moment he, too, froze.

  He was backed into a corner of the room. Jack towered above him, unspeaking, his face impassive. His eyes stared down at Orphan but did not see him. For Jack, Orphan realised, was no longer there.

  Jack kicked him again. The kick just missed his left kneecap and hit his shin. Pain shot through him, weaving a bright spider-web through his body. Stars exploded behind Orphan's eyes. Amongst them he thought, for a fleeting moment, that he could see a red, large star winking at him.

  The starscape faded to black. When he opened his eyes again Jack was still there, his foot raised high. Ready to stomp down on Orphan. Ready to finish him. With no conscious thought, like a spider with its own mind, his fingers reached down to his side and pulled out the old gun, fumbling at it, cocking the hammer. Jack's foot descended –

  Orphan pulled the trigger.

  SIXTEEN

  At the Bibliotheca Librorum Imaginariorum

  There thou mayst brain him, Having first seized his books, or with a log

  Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake, Or cut his wezand with thy knife. Remember First to possess his books; for without them He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not

  One spirit to command: they all do hate him As rootedly as I. Burn but his books.

  – William Shakespeare, The Tempest

  The recoil threw him back. He felt his shoulder and arm slapped as by a giant stone hand. The sound of an explosion deafened him.

  A book landed in his lap, and when he looked at it, blinking, realised for the first time that he was bleeding. The blood congealed on the leather cover, mixed with the dust that lay on the book like a thick layer of pollen. A choked laugh escaped from his lips. The book in his lap was Gray's Anatomy. I'm going to need that, he thought.

  He raised his head. His fingers clutched the book.

  Jack was crumpled against the wall on the other side of the room. There was a hole in his chest. But there was no blood.

  Orphan pulled himself up, his bloodied hands leaving palm-prints on the wall. The gun remained on the floor, beside the fallen book.

  He took a deep breath and felt pain, like a jagged nail, cut across his ribs. His nose was blocked and hurting. One leg refused to carry him, and he leaned with his back against the wall, letting the leg dangle. Jack remained unmoving on the other side. He, too, had hit a bookcase. He lay surrounded by silent, fallen books.

  Slowly, carefully, one hand trailing against the wall and the contours of the room, Orphan made his way toward him.

  There was a whistling sound in his ears. And, somehow, he could smell – there was a burning smell in the room, a mix of gunpowder and something else, as of scorched rubber…

  He stood above Jack. His friend's face was lax, empty, as if its features had half-melted away, leaving behind a mask devoid of animation. His eyes were closed. He forced himself to look below the face. His eyes moved down slowly, hesitating as they went. They felt, he thought, reluctant to obey his brain.

  There was a hole in Jack's chest. And in the hole… blue fire.

  A spark flew in the air and made Orphan stagger back. Sparks were coming out of the open hole in Jack's chest, one and then another one and another, until a small electric storm seemed to erupt out of that still body and jump into the air.

  He is bleeding electricity, Orphan thought. And then, at last, he formulated to himself the thought that had insinuated itself into his mind when Jack attacked him. Simulacrum.

  He knelt beside Jack and took his hand in his. There was no pulse, but the skin felt warm and, now that he looked closer, lines of light were moving beneath the skin.

  He peered into the hole in Jack's chest. Sparks were still flying, but they were diminishing. Inside… he could not comprehend it. Perhaps, he thought, he was expecting gears and cogs. But the inside of Jack's body resembled no machine he had ever seen. It was like a vast, strangely beautiful painting of incomprehensible, miniature elements, not human, not machine, but some sort of unknowable technology that was, perhaps, a little of both. Jack, he thought, numb. Why? Who?

  But he already knew the answer. He rose from his crouching position and looked around the room. Books lay everywhere, like wounded soldiers on a battlefield. The desk, the Tesla set. Nothing else. He began scanning the shelves, pressing his hand against the wall as he moved around the room. Searching.

  "I know you're here," he said into the silence. "I know you can hear me."

  The books, he thought. He needed a key. He began riffling through the ones still left on the shelves, pick ing each for the brief moment it took him to read the title, then tossing the book on the floor. Jack, he thought. That's where he would hide things. In books. Jo March's A Phantom Hand. William Ashbless's Accounts of London Scientists. Hawthorne Abendsen's The Grasshopper Lies Heavy. The Encyclopedia Donkaniara. The Book of Three. Emmanuel Goldstein's The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. Captain Eustacio Binky's Coffee Making as a Fine Art. Ludvig Prinn's De Vermis Mysteriis. Gulliver Fairborn's A Talent for Sacrifice. Colonel Sebastian Moran's Heavy Game of the Western Himalayas. Gottfried Mulder's Secret Mysteries of Asia, with Commentary on the Ghorl Nigral. Cosmo Cowperthwait's Sexual Dimorphism Among The Echinoderms, Focusing Particularly Upon the Asteroidea and Holothuroidea. George Edward Challenger's Some Observations Upon a Series of Kalmuk Skulls.

  What were t
hose books? Orphan thought, exasperated. Most of these titles were completely unknown to him. He almost wanted to stop, to take his time, browse through the titles at leisure, leaf through the enigmatic books, study their contents. Instead, he pulled each book, opened it and shook it upside down, searching for something hidden inside. Some things did fall out – a pressed flower here, its startling blue preserved amidst the pages of Josephine M. Bettany's Mystery at Heron Lake; a folded currency note there, bearing an unknown script, that fluttered to the ground from within Flashman's Twixt Cossack and Cannon – but nothing to give him a clue, a hint as to his next move. Yet as he continued ransacking the shelves he became more and more convinced that what he was doing was right, that the books were the twine that could lead him across the floor of the maze to the minotaur who waited at its centre.

  Gossip Gone Wild by Dr Jubal Harshaw. In My Father's House by Princess Irulan. Burlesdon on Ancient Theories and Modern Facts by James Rassendyll, Lord Burlesdon. The Truth of Alchemy by Mr. Karswell. Stud City by Gordon Lachance. Boxing the Compass by Bobbi Anderson. The Relationship of Extradigitalism to Genius, by Zubarin. Megapolisomancy by Thibaut de Castries. De Impossibilitate Prognoscendi by Cezar Kouska. Eustace Clarence Scrubb's Diary. Azathoth and Other Horrors by Edward Pickman Derby.

  More things fell from the books. A coin, so blackened that its face could no longer be discerned. A map of an island drawn in a child's hand. A butterfly, the wings black save for two emerald spots. A newspaper cutting from the Daily Journal, that read:

  12 June 1730.

  Seven Kings or Chiefs of the Chirakee Indians, bordering upon the area called Croatoan, are come over in the Fox Man of War, Capt. Arnold, in order to pay their duty to his Majesty, and assure him of their attachment to his person and Government, &c.

  Aunt Susan's Compendium of Pleasant Knowledge. Broomstick or the Midnight Practice. R. Blastem's Sea Gunner's Practice, with Description of Captain Shotgun's Murdering Piece. The Libellus Leibowitz. Augustus Whiffle's The Care of the Pig. Dr Stephen Maturin's Thoughts on the Prevention of Diseases most usual among Seamen. Professor Radcliffe Emerson's Development of the Egyptian Coffin from Predynastic Times to the End of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, With Particular Reference to Its Reflection of Religious, Social, and Artistic Conventions. The Book of Bokonon. Kilgore Trout's Now It Can Be Told. James Bailey's Life of William Ashbless. Hugo Rune's The Book of Ultimate Truths. Harriet Vane's The Sands of Crime. Jean-Baptiste Colbert's Grand System of Universal Monarchy. Toby Shandy's Apologetical Oration. Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mari–

  There.

  He was on his knees, a dull throbbing pain in his hurt leg. He saw the title, bottom shelf, Coleridge's name. But the book did not move.

  And then he noticed the dust.

  A layer of dust had settled over time on the tops of the books and lay there undisturbed. Yet on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner there was no dust.

  And the book would not move, would not be pulled away from the shelf.

  Orphan stared at it for a long moment. That long, strange poem of Coleridge… He traced the edges of the slim book with his fingers.

  It did not feel like the rest. It was hard, metallic, not leather. He gave up on trying to pull it out and, instead, gave it a push with his thumb.

  The book slid effortlessly away from him.

  There was a soft click.

  The bookcase moved. It hit Orphan, sending more pain through his body, and he scrambled away and fell on the floor, cushioned uncomfortably by books.

  The bookcase moved, swinging, and behind it was an emptiness, a lack of a wall and beyond that was a darkness. Somewhere in the distance he could hear what sounded like waves, and taste a sharp, almost rancid smell.

  He stood up, looked one last time towards Jack. Then he retrieved the gun from where it lay on the floor and tucked it into its holster. He lifted the wide-brimmed hat from the floor and put it carefully back on his head, at an angle.

  He stared into the darkness for a long moment, but could discern nothing beyond the bookcase. Then he took a deep breath and stepped forward, and into the darkness.

  SEVENTEEN

  The Man Behind the Screen

  The Lion thought it might be as well to frighten the Wizard, so he gave a large, loud roar, which was so fierce and dreadful that Toto jumped away from him in alarm and tipped over the screen that stood in a corner. As it fell with a crash they looked that way, and the next moment all of them were filled with wonder. For they saw, standing in just the spot the screen had hidden, a little old man, with a bald head and a wrinkled face, who seemed to be as much surprised as they were. The Tin Woodman, raising his axe, rushed toward the little man and cried out, "Who are you?"

  – L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

  The ground sloped gradually beneath his feet. The earth felt moist, and his feet sank slightly into it with each step he took. The darkness was complete; he felt that he was set loose in the space between the stars, with no up or down, no weight…

  There was the sound of waves. The air was warm, but a small breeze blew against his face. He had the sense of unseen things scuttling away from him in the darkness.

  Where was he? he wondered. Somewhere underneath Charing Cross Road? He could not tell which direction he was taking. What was this place?

  As he walked further he could discern a glow of light in the distance. Coming closer, the glow resolved and separated into strange orbs that cast a dim, greenish light over the surroundings.

  He was standing in a cavern, and the orbs were hung on the walls. Before him was a black lake, and he was standing on its shore. There was sand at his feet.

  He bent down and touched the water. It was cool to the touch, and he lifted some in his palm and drank from the lake. The water had almost no taste, yet it revived him.

  He began to walk along the shore, his body casting two shadows onto the ground. A short way off, by the cavern's wall, he found an empty boat beached on the sand.

  He knows I am coming, he thought. He is waiting. The thought did not upset him. The Bookman wants you to find him, the Turk had said. He has kept his eyes on you for a long time now…

  "I know you are watching," he said aloud. There was no other sound but the lapping of the waves. "I'm coming."

  He pushed the boat into the water and climbed inside. It was made of wood and smelled of disuse. Once in the water it began to move of its own accord.

  He sat back. There was nothing else for him to do, and he was suddenly glad. He let his hand trail in the water of that dark lake. Perhaps it is the same boat Lucy had travelled on, he thought. Soon we could come back, together in it.

  His hand touched something soft in the water. He looked overboard and nearly fell over: there was a body floating in the water, its eyes open and looking straight at him.

  The body floated just below the surface of the water. It was that of a man, naked, not alive and yet not dead, either, and he recognised it: it was Henry Irving, the actor. He had last seen him blown up into pieces at the Rose.

  He pulled away from the side of the boat, feeling sudden revulsion. As he looked now, he could see other bodies submerged in the water of the lake. The water was very clear, translucent. The lake, he realised, was very shallow. He sat back, unsettled. Henry Irving's body diminished behind him.

  As the shore grew farther in the distance a shape loomed ahead, rising out of the lake. A small island, he thought. The boat, of its own, unknown will, headed towards it.

  It was not a long journey. Soon, too soon, the boat ran aground on the island, and he stepped out. He felt better now, and the various pains in his body had disappeared. Touching his nose, he could not feel the break. Instead, he felt light and clear-headed. Something in the water, he thought.

  His feet touched black sand. Before him the island was almost flat, a disc floating on the water. He scraped away at the sand and was not surprised to discover a greenish metal underneath. An artificial island. He took a ste
p forward, then another. The ground rose, then, after only a few more steps, gently sloped downwards.

  Above his head the globes of light slowly faded, leaving him in total darkness. He stood for a long moment, not moving, and waited.

  Though he thought he was prepared, when the voice came it nevertheless startled him. "Mr. Orphan. What a delight to finally meet you." It was a deep, mellow voice.

  A light came to life directly ahead of him. An oldfashioned, ornamental streetlamp planted in the sand. It illuminated a small square of chequered tiles, black and white like a chess set. In the centre of the square was a table. On the table stood a tea pot, a small milk jug, a jar of sugar and two delicate china cups. On a saucer he could discern what looked like ginger biscuits.